50 | Empathy - The Most Effective Journey to Innovations in AI

Today's episode is a Simply Tech LIVE interview featuring my co-host, Ali Mazaheri, and our guest, Ed Essey. Ed is the Director of Intrapreneurship & Incubation in the Microsoft Garage, a program that delivers and drives a culture of innovation, and is largely responsible for coming up with some very creative Microsoft AI products that exist today in the market. One of which is Video Indexer, a media AI technology that makes it easier to extract insights from videos. The product has won numerous design and innovation awards including the 2019 National Association of Broadcasters or NAB product of the year, and Video Indexer brings together everything from facial detection to visual content moderation. It's a really cool way to see multiple AI models working within one solution, and a great example of the types of ideas that can be brought forward by very intentionally designed innovation programming.

Ed is a titan in the world of innovation, and has spent his entire career focused on creating new things at start-ups and in the enterprise, as well as hiring people who can do this very well while creating programs that bring new ideas forward. Ed's been at Microsoft for almost 19 years, and brings with him a BS Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

We talk today with Ed deeply about how organizations are typically approaching machine learning and advanced technologies with focus on scale and optimization, but why the true focus should be on purpose. We talk about innovation as a culture, and get into some depth around Ed's recent project experiences, including on AI solution for families of children with Epilepsy, to unlock real human experiences and proximity. This is a discussion around AI and it's most important sub component, Empathy.